The December 2000 Netcraft Web Server Survey is out: Apache gains; IIS/PWS slips Page 2

                                                                               
                                                                               
                                 Active Sites                                  
                                                                               
                                                                               
        Developer  November 2000  Percent December 2000  Percent Change         
        Apache           5770634   59.95        6218326   59.54  -0.41         
        Microsoft        2483691   25.80        2615133   25.04  -0.76         
        iPlanet           247976    2.58         278724    2.67   0.09      

   Around the Net
  
    Linux distribution trial of force
    
   Competition between the Linux distributions has been particularly
   fierce since the release of Red Hat 7.0, which has provoked a great
   deal of controversy, initially because the C compiler produces
   binaries incompatible with other Linux distributions. The argument has
   escalated to a point well beyond a difference of opinion over the
   technicalities, with part of the Linux community suggesting that Red
   Hat is using its leading position in the market to marginalise the
   other distributions, while Linus Torvalds [1]called Red Hat 7.0
   "idiotic", "broken", and "unusable as a development platform".
   
   It poses the question whether the Red Hat brand and market position is
   strong enough to withstand this kind of assault.
   
   On a crude count of Linux Apache sites found by Netcraft where the
   Apache signature has been branded by the Linux distribution company,
   Red Hat currently has 69%. SUSE and Debian are the closest challengers
   with 9% and 8% respectively on a worldwide basis, though SUSE is the
   leading distribution in German speaking countries. Critically, Red Hat
   is established as the standard install at most well known dedicated
   server companies and Linux hardware vendors, is the base distribution